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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28099068">I'm Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnAntagonist/pseuds/AnAntagonist'>AnAntagonist</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing, Super Dangan Ronpa 2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Talentswap (Dangan Ronpa), Critic Komaeda, Gen, Hinata as the Ultimate Artist, Komahina - Freeform, Not romantic yet implicit, Rocky start, painter hinata</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 12:00:40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,377</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28099068</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnAntagonist/pseuds/AnAntagonist</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“This is garbage.” The voice that rose above the rising, surprised murmurs in the room had a soft but slightly raspy tone, /something like that drag of a scraper with oil on a canvas/ was the first thought Hinata had when he heard it.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hinata Hajime/Komaeda Nagito</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>95</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>I'm Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Leelo aquí en español: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28099167</p><p>All the love in the world to Red for the translation ♥ Also I wanted to make a special thanks to him and Sol, both of them were bainstorming headcanons and AUs and I really love the idea. Komaeda is inspired in Chris Burden (performance artist).</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Hinata observed with bored eyes the group of faces, already becoming silhouettes without individuality around him. It wasn’t the first showcase of his works. The pieces were hyperrealistic paintings that had evoked the community’s admiration. His medium was oil on linen canvas and on his earliest of them the influence of impressionism was strongly noticeable, the same one that had, little by little, shifted into that hyperrealism that had left the critics speechless.<br/>
<br/>
</span>
  <span>The human figures in the paintings returned the beholder’s gaze with so much life that they seemed to be observing the spectators through a hole in the wall, without so much glass in between. Other paintings showed landscapes that grabbed the attention of anybody passing by, as the leaves in the trees seemed to sway in the wind and the reflections in the water seemed to shine when seen out of the corner of one’s eye.<br/>
<br/>
</span>
  <span>But among the works in such marked style was an abruptly different one. Almost as wide as the wall it was mounted on, it was the painting he’d spent the most time and largest efforts on, his first creation of abstract art, inspired in the polemical “Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue?”. His version was completely red, with two thin, crossed lines that were just slightly off-center, one yellow and the other blue. The dark red to bright red gradient went opposite to that of the lines, from black to their respective colors. And a critic of that same gallery had burst into angry tears after approaching the painting and getting to see that the gradient was the work of small sweeps done with a scraper.<br/>
<br/>
</span>
  <span>It was the second day of the exhibition and that one painting had already become news in the media, attracting nothing but praise and applause from the critics, as well as high offers for purchase, though he refused to sell it.<br/>
<br/>
</span>
  <em>
    <span>*splash*<br/>
<br/>
</span>
  </em>
  <span>After the gasp of the public, the gallery was left in total silence.<br/>
<br/>
</span>
  <span>“This is garbage.” The voice that rose above the rising, surprised murmurs in the room had a soft but slightly raspy tone, </span>
  <em>
    <span>something like that drag of a scraper with oil on a canvas</span>
  </em>
  <span> was the first thought Hinata had when he heard it.<br/>
<br/>
</span>
  <span>When he turned around, the artist’s gaze was met with the young man that had scornfully commented on his most praised painting and with shock he saw how the red wine dripped from its crimson surface, ruining the texture he’d worked so much for. He could almost see in real time how the astringency, coupled with the alcohol, cracked the new paint and ruined it to a point of no return.<br/>
<br/>
</span>
  <span>He opened his mouth but found no words, though the young man wasn’t done yet.<br/>
<br/>
</span>
  <span>“The technique is flawless but lacks sentiment, or meaning. The painter is as hollow and fragile as a broken eggshell, and he couldn’t even reflect that much in his piece…”<br/>
<br/>
</span>
  <span>The security guards arrived at the scene as quickly as the incident had been picked up by the cameras and immediately seized the aggressor by the arms, without him even resisting. It was the artist himself who interrupted the scene, taking a step forward. “Stop! Let him talk.”<br/>
<br/>
</span>
  <span>The critic’s olive gaze fell contemptuously on him. “I’ll assume that you’re the, so to say, ‘artist’.” He took a couple of seconds to look him over at length, building a sort of tension that seemed to fascinate the spectators, thirsty for the drama. “Hinata Hajime. I know you, you’re called a ‘young prodigy’. Stay on hyperrealism, where you just depend on your technique and no one can see the sterile gap of your soul. It’s all just attention seeking, to show you’re capable of holding a brush. Congratulations, it’s very nice.” Still holding the empty wine glass, he used his free hand to clap on the back of the other hand a couple of times, mocking.<br/>
<br/>
</span>
  <span>“But it’s empty, it has no essence, no meaning, it has nothing to it,” he continued. “It’s a shame for abstract expressionism.” The smash of the glass against the painting made a tear in the canvas, spreading broken glass on the floor. The guards held the critic’s arms fast and pulled him to the exit.<br/>
<br/>
</span>
  <span>With no words in his mouth, Hinata was left watching the skinny figure of the white-haired man being escorted away by two guards without offering resistance.<br/>
<br/>
</span>
</p>
<hr/><p><span><br/>
<br/>
</span>The blow of his closed fist made the glasses and the bottle clink on the table, attracting the eyes of the guests in the neighboring table of the busy restaurant in front of the gallery.</p><p>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>“And he spilled his wine on the painting! Now it’s ruined, it was my best work...” The fist that had remained against the table with knuckles white from tension relaxed, and he ran his fingers through his hair, disheveling the spiked strands that he’d tried so hard to tame in the morning with gel and a blowdryer.<br/>
<br/>
</span>
  <span>“Didn’t you hate it?” Nanami commented, once Hinata was finally done venting.<br/>
<br/>
</span>
  <span>“Yeah… doesn’t change that it’s the best I’ve done until now, I worked hard on that. I just hated it because everyone kept saying it was good and I knew it wasn’t.” The man grumbled, taking a bite of his food, then furrowed his brow and let out an audible sigh of frustration<br/>
<br/>
</span>
  <span>“But you also get mad if someone says it’s bad? Ohhh… Hiata-kuuun, that’s confusing, you know, soo confusing. ” Hummed Angie, the third person at the table. As she tilted her head to be able to look at her younger companion’s expression, his was almost buried into his food.<br/>
<br/>
</span>
  <span>“He ruined it! Of course I’m gonna get mad if he does that!” The brown-haired man’s voice became frustrated, and while closing his fist around his chopsticks again, he seethed out his words. “Even if he thought it was trash, he had no business ruining it! Tsk… let him go tear all my paintings! Let him pile them up and set them on fire! It’s just scraps of fabric. That way I’ll be able to  stop obsessing over that crap and do something worthwhile,” he finished, with sarcasm.<br/>
<br/>
</span>
  <span>“Then he wasn’t such a bad critic...” Nanami smiled calmly at him, not catching on to her friend’s tone.<br/>
<br/>
</span>
  <span>Hinata’s mouth opened and closed, angry, but upon seeing the girl’s face he simply sighed again, calming down somewhat. “I’m not saying he’s a bad critic… he is a critic, an artist too. He’s a painter, but he’s getting big as a performance artist… he’s my age, his name’s Komaeda.”<br/>
<br/>
</span>
  <span>“Wait!” It was now Angie who made the glasses and the bottle clink, as she abruptly stood and placed both hands on the table. “Is he the one that stabbed himself in the hand with a combat knife and had his performance banned in three galleries?!”<br/>
<br/>
</span>
  <span>“That’s the one! He’s screwed in the head.” Hajime exclaimed, raising his chopsticks and pointing them at the girl to highlight his point, so caught up that for a moment the rules of table etiquette slipped from his conscience.<br/>
<br/>
</span>
  <span>“He’s a genius.” Angie finished with a thrilled sigh, causing the creases to return to Hinata’s brow.<br/>
<br/>
</span>
  <span>Nanami, with her head leaned towards her phone, whispered thoughtfully. “Komaeda?” Raising the screen to their view, she pointed at the name made of complex kanji in a promotional graphic. “He has a performance show right now, in the showroom of the central theatre.”<br/>
<br/>
</span>
  <span>Without even finishing his food, Hinata rose from the table. “I’ll go over there and tell him! I’ll tell him he’s screwed in the head! I will! He’ll see what’s what! He can’t just go around doing that stuff!”<br/>
<br/>
</span>
  <span>Angie cheered him on with sincere enthusiasm as the brown-haired man left his part of the bill and, throwing his jacket on, ran out to take the first taxi he found on the street. </span><br/>
<br/>
<span>On the short road his head steadily cooled down and the words that had bothered him so much began to sound different. As much as Komaeda had been rough and impolite with his criticism… Hinata knew he was right and had been the only person to understand the problem with his artwork and, thus, the problem he himself carried.</span>
</p>
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